Yuri on Ice

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This week for Anime Sunday I’m covering the best of last year’s Anime. It’s my Winners of 2016!

GATE: I’ve enjoyed watching GATE an episode at a time with my Aunt every few weeks and having ended in Winter 2016, it deserves this spot for the wonderful story it showed me and her.

Boku no Hero Academia: Boku no Hero was an awesome show to watch for all of us who at one point or another all wanted to be a superhero.

ReZero: ReZero wowed the world in 2016, and if you haven’t watched it yet you are truly missing out. This might just have been the best show this year.

Yuri on Ice: Yuri on Ice pushed the boundaries of animation and storytelling this year and stunned viewers with your beautiful choreography. YOI impressed even Olympic skaters. This is the big contender for best of the year with ReZero in my books.

3-gatsu: 3-gatsu shows the story of a boy who deals with depression in a way even the most dense person can understand. Just for that it deserves a spot on this list, the fact that it has an awesome story as well is icing on the cake.

Honorable Mentions:

Tales of Zestiria the X: Animated by my favorite studio ufotable, ToZX was an awesome show to watch, but it also included story and characters from the yet to be released in the west Tales of Berseria, so I can’t give it a formal spot because of that.

3-gatsu: This was a really awesome series that goes into how it feels to be depressed, and it’s not even over yet! We still have another season to go through.

Yuri on Ice: This series really pushed the boundaries on Anime, and it had some amazing choreography animation. If you are getting praised by actual Olympic ice skaters you must be doing something right.

Shuumatsu no Izetta: This was a great take on the second World War, plus I’m all for having badass female leads.

Honorable Mentions:

Keijo: Keep on pushing that envelope Japan. Maybe the rest of the world won’t be so prudish if you keep doing it. Or not, still this was amusing if only for the GIFs I kept seeing on Twitter.

That’s it for this Christmas edition of Anime Sunday, next week it’ll be a new year and I’ll be looking ahead at the upcoming season.

This week for Anime Sunday I’m going over the first episode of what might be the most talked about Anime of the entire year. It’s my Yuri on Ice Episode 01 Impressions!

Plot Synopsis: The story follows a Japanese figure skater named Yuri Katsuki following a crushing defeat during the final of a Grand Prix competition. Following more failures, Yuri has developed mixed feelings about ice skating, among other troubles in his life, and puts his career on a hiatus. After graduating from college in Detroit, he comes back home to Hasetsu in Kyushu after being away for five years.

Plot: The first episode was pretty gripping, and while there were silly moments it was mostly pretty serious. That isn’t to say it wasn’t exciting there actually were amazingly well done parts that even got my heart pounding. I won’t go into the details, but there is a reason that so many people have been raving about this series.

Characters: Yuri is a pretty depressing guy in this first episode, but by the end of it he grew on me. Victor on the other hand seems to be very carefree. Yuri P., another Figure Skater from Russia is very much a jerk in this episode. Maybe he’ll grow on me in later episodes.

Art: The skating sequences were amazinly well done, in fact Olympic skaters from around the world have commented on how well done the sequences are and how accurate they are. So that is another reason people are so excited about this series.

Music: The music was pretty awesome, from the opening to the ending it was very well done. Even during the depressing parts it was very fitting.

Overall: I won’t scream at you to watch this series, but you owe it to yourself to at least give it a shot. I know I’ll be talking about this series with friends for years to come.